Recettes

Alkubus

Alkubus is a Hausa steamed wheat bread from Northern Nigeria, plain by design and made to be eaten with something else. It is soft, faintly sour from the yeast, and it holds its shape well enough to be cut into rounds or wedges. Its role on the plate is the role bread plays across the north: the thing that carries the soup. Alkubus is eaten most often with miyan taushe, the pumpkin and groundnut soup, and it also goes with agushi soup, vegetable soup, cabbage stew or a plain tomato sauce. That pairing with miyan taushe is the one Northern Nigerians name first. There are two ways to make it and they produce different things. Baked in a greased pan and topped with carrot and onion, it is a loaf to be cut and eaten in slices. Portioned into wrappers and steamed over boiling water, it comes out softer and denser, closer to a dumpling, and that is the method the recipe here follows. Steaming rather than baking runs through a great deal of Hausa cooking, from dambu to danwake to masa, and alkubus belongs to that family more than it does to any oven tradition.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

25 minEasyNigeria

Recette de Nympha · Africook

Mbakbaka (Libyan Pasta Stew)

Mbakbaka, also written imbakbaka, is Libya's one pot pasta stew and it is a direct product of Italian colonisation. Italy occupied Libya from 1911 to 1943, pasta arrived with the occupation, and Libyan cooks absorbed it into a North African spice framework rather than adopting Italian technique alongside it. The result is a pasta dish that no Italian would recognise. Turmeric, ginger, curry powder, chilli and mixed spices go into a tomato base with lamb or beef, and the pasta cooks directly in that liquid rather than being cooked separately and sauced afterwards. Potatoes go in too. Cooking the pasta in the sauce is the defining decision: the starch thickens the liquid and the pasta absorbs the spice, which is what makes it a stew rather than pasta with sauce on it. Macaroni elbows are the traditional shape, and ditalini, gemelli and other small pastas all suit it for the same reason: the tubes and twists hold the sauce. Harissa is a common addition for heat. The comparison people reach for is minestrone, which captures the one pot logic and misses the spicing entirely. It is winter food and family food, and it is eaten across Libya and among the Libyan diaspora.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

28 minEasyLibya

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Jollof Couscous

Jollof couscous applies the jollof method to North African couscous, and it sits at the meeting point of two quite separate West and North African traditions. The tomato and pepper base is built as it would be for jollof rice; the grain is steamed couscous rather than long grain rice. Couscous itself is North African, rolled from semolina and traditionally steamed several times in a couscoussier until it is light and separate rather than gummy. In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia it is served with a spiced vegetable stew and meat, which is a different proposition entirely from what happens here. Its texture is often compared to attiéké, the fermented cassava of Côte d'Ivoire, though the two share only appearance. Jollof itself is contested territory between Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and beyond, and applying it to couscous is a modern move rather than an inherited one. The source attributes this version to Senegal, which is where the jollof tradition originates in the thieboudienne of the Wolof people, though the framing in the original text is Nigerian. It is quick food, twenty minutes from start to finish, and it is honest about being an adaptation.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

30 minEasySenegal

Recette de Cuisine228 · Africook

How to Cook Couscous

How to prepare instant couscous: boiling water or stock poured over, covered, left to steam, then fluffed. This is a technique page for a staple ingredient rather than a recipe for a dish, and it is filed as such. Couscous is North African, specifically Berber in origin, and it is a staple across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Its status was recognised by UNESCO in 2020, when the knowledge and practices around couscous were inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in a joint submission by Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. It is not a grain, despite looking like one. Couscous is pasta, durum wheat semolina moistened, rolled into tiny granules and dried. Three sizes are common: Moroccan, the smallest; Israeli or pearl couscous, about the size of peppercorns; and Lebanese, the largest. The traditional method has nothing to do with pouring boiling water on. Couscous is steamed, usually more than once, in the upper chamber of a couscoussier over a stew whose vapours flavour it as it cooks. That is how it is made for a proper meal in North Africa and the results are much lighter. Almost all couscous sold in supermarkets is pre-steamed and dried, which is why the rehydration method here works.

20 minEasyMorocco

Recette de FoodChef · Africook